


prophetic

by Snowblaze



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, happiness, made this a while ago and finally posting it here, my special interest reference of the day belongs to dps today!, this fic is literally a 'carpe diem' fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 17:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30142890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowblaze/pseuds/Snowblaze
Summary: Claire wakes up from her horrible dream.(Set after Season 3 finale)
Relationships: Claire Browne/Neil Melendez
Comments: 11
Kudos: 13





	prophetic

And so, she woke up.

Unlike the endings of literary tales where the dream is reality, and truth fantasy, her dream was a dream; it was just a nightmare she would scream and cry about in the solitude of her own bed before moving on.

But she loved him.

And he loved her. At least, her fantastical version of him did.

But was it not a principle of psychology that the subconscious lights dreams with solved puzzles, with parables drenched in truth?

Did he love her?

The question rattled through her skull as she wiped the stains of tears off her cheeks and donned her usual garb.

She was delusional to believe what a dream told her. But her dream did not tell her: her brain did. Her doctoral, scholarly, educated brain spit out that the feelings she held for him were reciprocated.

She walked into work, and he was at the nurse’s station, waiting for her.

He was alive, and he smiled at her with the gentleness of a first kiss.

Claire wanted nothing more than to pull him into said kiss.

But did he love her?

Her dream haunted her with each light touch of his skin to hers, his gloves to hers. The vivid image of him dying, and holding her, and stroking her hair while he told her he loved her, infested every waking thought she had inside the hospital.

When her shift ended, she knew that the truth had to be revealed, consequences be damned.

If her dream ever became reality, if he perished, if she did, she wanted the words out in the open and said words to be etched into his brain, written in a small patch of neurons which would never be broken.

The night sky was beginning to fade into the wine reds and clementine oranges of dawn as she padded into his office. He was entranced by the awakening of the sun, but the way he looked at the horizon was perfectly identical to the way he looked at her when he thought she did not notice.

“Neil?”

She broke him from his trance, but he did not seem too scarred by her actions. Seeing her graced his face with a tender smile and cheered his eyes up.

“Hey Claire.”

Words left her. Her thoughts went on standstill. She was confident in an operating room, but this? In romance, she was cowardice.

“You alright? Our patient is going to be fine and so is her daughter.”

She commanded her mouth to speak. Nothing but silence spewed from her lips.

“Claire? Is there something you have to tell m–”

“I’m in love with you.” The words blurted from her, her vocal cords a siren of her mentality.

Rather than become one with the stillness of the room, he chuckled in a fashion she knew was mostly surprise but also delight.

“Well, that’s a good thing, because I’m in love with you.” His words brightened her soul. The nightmare was quashed by this damn near prophetic spilling of secrets, the baring of their souls.

Claire hugged him without any ability to stop herself. He was real. He loved her. Her dream was false: he loved her and he would not die. She loved him and he would not die. He was not her mother: this was not a motif of a book, a theme of her life.

He kissed her the moment she pulled away from their embrace in a motion more amazing than love herself.

In the moments as the sun rose in the sky and her heart rose in her chest and her hopes rose in her life, she knew: he was alive; he loved her.

“What brought this on?” he whispered to her as she caught her breath and bearings.

“A dream. A bad dream.”

Was it fate? Destiny? Prophesy? She did not care.

With the sunrise and their new beginning, they became love with life.

And they were never love without it.


End file.
